𐐕 𐐌 𐐢 𐐖 𐐡 𐐆 𐐝

my presidential campaign slogan in 2024 is “Cosplay...

Tue, 21 May 2013 00:50:50 -0400

my presidential campaign slogan in 2024 is “Cosplay 1824”

4 359 916 Northeast
0 859 305 Midwest
4 419 232 South
0 000 000 West

keyholez: As much as 70% of price moves in commodity markets are generated by trading programs...

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:06:04 -0400

As much as 70% of price moves in commodity markets are generated by trading programs reacting to one another,

a) Is there a principled distinction between human cognitive algorithms reacting to one another and “trading programs” (designed by humans, often based on abstractions of human traders’ behavior) doing so?

b) If my 30 seconds of Google-ing don’t deceive me, this is a pretty misleading summary of the underlying study. The article’s phrasing made me think that it was basing this claim on some kind of data about who was trading with whom, but I don’t think that actually exists. Sure enough, some (smart) Swiss people just took high-frequency price data and fit it to “the Hawkes self-excited conditional Poisson model” and then used that to estimate that 60-70% of commodity price changes are “endogenous.” This doesn’t actually have anything to do with “programs” as such. The “moves” could be endogenous even before electronic trading existed. Just look at what Washington Irving said about John Law!

b) Yea wow that’s bunk. The roughest way I could extract a meaningful component for algorithms and/or HFT from something as sketchy as “endogenous” moves—which they explicitly suggest, fuck the WSJ, include “Behavioral mechanisms and herding,” “Hedging strategies,” etc.—would be subtracting the earliest percentage from today’s; thus algorithmic price moves max out around [*skimming*, *skimming*, *skimming*] 30%. I’m not savvy enough in market activity or history to say, but it’s hard for me to imagine there was less herding (i.e. ‘bubblous endogeneity’) (and thus an even lower figure for algorithmic responsibility) in 1998… All in all a far less alarming result—not that we should necessarily, especially in an ideal universe, be alarmed by a fully automated exchange, because,

a) Nah, and this sort-of gets to a comment I left out to collect more notes: (in a world where prices are primarily determined by machines) capitalism, or at least the capitalist, is fucking moot. Traders ought to be jamming this software with their sabots. (Maybe you have front-line experience of such resentment?) ‘Free enterprise’, ‘neoliberalism’, whatever you want to call the existing distributed world government approaches the wildest fantasy from the overlapping peaks of SF and socialism—the executive as a black box. It’s not ‘central planning’, exactly, but it’s exactly what central planning should look like given the extreme diversity and range of factors involved, plus what we now know about how probability works, and what we’ve always known about the stickiness of corrupt bureaucrats (liboors notwithstanding). The joke, of course, is that skynet’s being run precisely to enrich the wastoid functionaries it ought to eliminate, but that’s okay because„ if your office pays income taxes it’s not a bureaucracy, it’s a ‘team’?

In reality, anyway, I think there are unprincipled reasons to distinguish, with some concern, between metaphorical cognitive and literal coded algorithms. As always writing in flagrant ignorance of the specifics, let’s imagine two hypothetical, stereotyped responses to today’s Times input:

[The high plains revert to their discovered form, the Great American Desert.]

A shift to growing corn, a much thirstier crop than most, has only worsened matters. Driven by demand, speculation and a government mandate to produce biofuels, the price of corn has tripled since 2002, and Kansas farmers have responded by increasing the acreage of irrigated cornfields by nearly a fifth.

At an average 14 inches per acre in a growing season, a corn crop soaks up groundwater like a sponge — in 2010, the State Agriculture Department said, enough to fill a space a mile square and nearly 2,100 feet high.

Sorghum, or milo, gets by on a third less water, Kansas State University researchers say — and it, too, is in demand by biofuel makers. As Kansas’ wells peter out, more farmers are switching to growing milo on dry land or with a comparative sprinkle of irrigation water.

But as long as there is enough water, most farmers will favor corn. “The issue that often drives this is economics,” said David W. Hyndman, who heads Michigan State University’s geological sciences department. “And as long as you’ve got corn that’s $7, then a lot of choices get made on that.”

Human sez, ‘Holy crap we’re already tapping out a nonrenewable resource that only becomes more necessary as the planet heats up: short everything west of the Missouri River.’

Algorithm sez—well prolly algorithm likewise just sells everything on declining profits, but for the sake of philosophy and/or scaremongering let’s pretend the quants have been outdoing each other lately. So hypertrophied algorithm sez, ‘Profits down, crop diversification up, commodity input [water] efficiency up: sell now, go long in futures market.’ Stirred by an interesting play, the nest of algorithms awakes, and bam—Midwestern agribusiness crashes hard now only to crash harder later. Fuzzily in short, what sometimes positively distinguishes human from computed algorithms is precisely what negatively distinguishes them the rest: the tendency to skim to the forest over the trees.

In any case, what I really wish—now that I have the free time at work to read three newspapers, jesus help me—would be that the rise of the machines meant instead of tossing out standard rationales like

Traders, analysts and economists cite the resurgence of the U.S. dollar, growing global energy demand and a steady flow of investment dollars into markets designed to trade and hedge price risks between producers and users of oil [for the high price of crude].

guys just threw up their hands like, ‘Whatever dude, we don’t get the Powerpoint on algorithm schematics until June.’

As much as 70% of price moves in commodity markets are generated by trading programs reacting to...

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:55:15 -0400

As much as 70% of price moves in commodity markets are generated by trading programs reacting to one another,

the tallest building in new york will be a luxury condominium

Sun, 19 May 2013 19:18:49 -0400

the tallest building in new york will be a luxury condominium

illiquidmarkets: i’m dyyyyyying

Sun, 19 May 2013 14:41:45 -0400

illiquidmarkets:

i’m dyyyyyying

death to the cryogenic corpse america

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:18:32 -0400

death to the cryogenic corpse america

an SNES game called Escape the Floodplain after you cross the Hudson (biking) night falls and...

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:16:55 -0400

an SNES game called Escape the Floodplain

after you cross the Hudson (biking) night falls and it’s just press A-B press A-B press A-B press A-B press A-B press A-B press A-B press A-B press A-B press A-B press A-B press A-B press A-B press A-B listening to radio reports of carnage until sunrise

no saves
if you win the console flash burns-in a stained-glass image of the main character eating bugs under a rotten apple tree

milk-chiller2: skeetshoot: sending nudes to the moon You can send radio waves to the moon and...

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:04:32 -0400

milk-chiller2:

skeetshoot:

sending nudes to the moon

You can send radio waves to the moon and bounce them across the world for free

this is also the purpose of HAARP, across the world and deep under the sea

death to america

Fri, 17 May 2013 23:43:40 -0400

death to america

console froze at the part where seidel takes a vow of silence

Fri, 17 May 2013 23:42:44 -0400

console froze at the part where seidel takes a vow of silence

the island purchased by organized violence against entropy Sioux City, Iowa had their first-ever...

Thu, 16 May 2013 23:36:00 -0400

the island purchased by organized violence against entropy

Sioux City, Iowa had their first-ever snowfall on record in the month of May on May 1 (1.4”), but hit an astonishing 106° yesterday. Not only was this their hottest temperature ever measured in the month of May, but only two June days in recorded history have been hotter (June, 10, 1933: 107° and June 21, 1988: 108°.) On May 12th they registered 29°, and thus had a 77° rise over 56 hours (from 6 a.m. May 12 to 1:30 p.m May 14.)

» Sitting in his Ford pickup next to Section 35, he unfolded a sheet of white paper that tracked the decline of his grandfather’s well: from 1600 gallons a minute in 1964, to 1200 in 1975, to 750 in 1976. When the well slumped to 500 gallons in 1991, the Yosts capped it and drilled another nearby. Its output sank, too, from 1352 gallons to 300 today. This year, Mr. Yost spent more than $15000 to drill four more test wells in Section 35. The best of them produced 195 gallons a minute—a warning, he said,

is no longer earth but this against all future centuries

anarchism without purpose / fascism without method / ~ [mesovorticism ~] / fascism with method /...

Thu, 16 May 2013 23:34:31 -0400

anarchism without purpose / fascism without method / ~ [mesovorticism ~] / fascism with method / anarchism with purpose

Photo

Thu, 16 May 2013 19:02:56 -0400

milk-chiller2: Computational Biology DivisionOils Division, HairOils Division, SkinCybersecurity...

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:44:46 -0400

milk-chiller2:

Computational Biology Division
Oils Division, Hair
Oils Division, Skin
Cybersecurity Division
Heavy Weaponry Division
Posture Division

That’s all I can think of for the next functioning government so it’s probably all we need

Academy of Prophecy (Classified)
Academy of Prophecy (Unclassified)
Bureau of Allowable Facial Expressions
Mass Hysteria Registry
Biosphere 3 [submarine]
Call Out Queen

i can’t wait for this to start happening and liberals...

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:29:40 -0400

i can’t wait for this to start happening and liberals wringing their hands in slight clammy sweat

this fuckin guy President Obama rejected as “a sideshow,” criticism of his handling of the Libya...

Mon, 13 May 2013 23:41:43 -0400

this fuckin guy

President Obama rejected as “a sideshow,” criticism of his handling of the Libya attacks. On the scandal at the revenue agency, he said the singling out of certain groups, if true, was “outrageous.”

who wouldn’t audit a movement that predominantly existed on ning.com? (but the first ambassador kia in 32 years, bwoo whoo)

carnaro: Thirty-car pileup on the Beltway at rush hour with ever more coming. Crisis upon crisis...

Mon, 13 May 2013 21:11:00 -0400

carnaro:

Thirty-car pileup on the Beltway at rush hour with ever more coming. Crisis upon crisis until crisis is the everyday. Panic rolls in, a beige miasma, East Coast neurosis of post-Puritan prostetnics. The erection of the global village turns up injustice in every corner, injustice like heroin injected straight into the eyes. Evil saps and simultaneously replenishes our precious bodily fluids. Morris Dees and the ’60s narcissists as visionaries of the time, the first signs of the earthquake ever onward. Quake with the fear of Satan! Satan under our beds and in our schools! Satan in villainous villages from Ireland to Iraq! Satan in our airports!—this is how we know in this fallen world that we are alive! Feel the blood of Satan-hatred coursing through your veins! One more shot; do you not want to feel the power? Do you not want to become political? Take the sacrament! Get involved! Responsibility! Do something! Stop hate—stop rape—stop Kony—step up to the fucking plate! Politics! Mass once every four years,—or mass every minute of every hour, continuous worship, continuous prayer, every moment dedicated to the driving-back of the dread god that inspires in you your awakening and rising fear, every moment getting involved, shooting up, one more hit from HuffPo, solidarity, post-Dionysian faux-rationality, God hath spoken and this is what he said, spiraling masses of commandments shooting forth from every tentacle of the Catholith, the great behemoth of Boston, the one, holy, and apostolic—politics!—church for the atheist, heroin for the straightedge, box-wine for the briefcase carrier, Moloch of the modern age!

Today in the park there was a small anti-Keystone rally. Most of the signs used Obama iconography. There was organized chanting, and after each chant carried on for a few rounds it would break down into accolades, the crowd cheering itself for coming together as a crowd, the crowd dissolving each message for having bonded, light giddy ‘yahh~!’ of the pitch you’d hear at a women’s high school lacrosse match. Walking in circles to stay warm, I thought about the back cover of today’s Wall Street Journal. ‘CHINA FINISHES PIPELINE IN MYANMAR / TROPICAL CYCLONE BEARS DOWN ON REFUGEES IN MYANMAR’ Tonight trying to find an exact figure for Chinese vegetable prices the FT described as “soaring” I realized if I were the wanderjagging dropout I pretend to be, backpacking across China for a romantic’s gawking ‘solidarity’, I’d freeze to death.

the mainstream political stance in the west on basically every subject is like playing william tell...

Mon, 13 May 2013 20:18:00 -0400

the mainstream political stance in the west on basically every subject is like playing william tell russian roulette with your son, first round no shot, pretend it went off & missed, gleefully let off next five rapid fire

100 million americans shivering around the water cooler two weeks from memorial day ‘whatever...

Mon, 13 May 2013 00:33:25 -0400

100 million americans shivering around the water cooler two weeks from memorial day ‘whatever happened to global warming eh????’ because the ice cap is melting so fast that the center of arctic high pressure has migrated hundreds of miles south to greenland

lol smilie face

Sun, 12 May 2013 21:58:31 -0400

lol smilie face